Inkjet printers are a popular way to print images on sheets of media, either in black and white or in color. For color images in particular, inkjet printers typically work by having a number of supplies of differently colored ink, such as cyan, magenta, and yellow, which are combined in different ways to yield a wide gamut of different colors. Many inkjet printers have a single cartridge that includes supplies of all these differently colored inks, and another cartridge that includes a supply of black ink. Some specialized inkjet printers have a single cartridge that includes supplies of differently colored inks, optionally a supply of black ink, and even a number of media sheets on which images are to be printed.
For this latter type of printer, the supplies of differently colored inks and the optional supply of black ink are desirably sufficient to allow users to print on all the media sheets included in the cartridge. If there is an insufficient amount of any of the inks, the user may be unable to print on all the media sheets supplied in the cartridge. Similarly, for inkjet printers that use a single cartridge that include supplies of differently colored inks, one color of ink may run out before the other colors of ink, necessitating the insertion of a brand-new cartridge into an inkjet printer. For example, there may be some cyan and magenta ink remaining, but the yellow ink may have run out, necessitating insertion of a brand-new cartridge having full supplies of cyan, magenta, and yellow inks.